


set a candle in the rain

by themarmalade



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Domestic Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29352699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themarmalade/pseuds/themarmalade
Summary: Everyone's sense of touch is mostly dormant until their soulmate touches them. After a walk down the street in January, Yeonjun feels everything.Soobin does not.
Relationships: Choi Soobin/Choi Yeonjun
Comments: 28
Kudos: 375





	set a candle in the rain

**Author's Note:**

> this was honestly a drabble that i got carried away with :') nothing i write is as angsty as it might sound don't worry

It bloomed like fire. For weeks, Yeonjun didn’t have words for it, a brand new sensation, a fifth sense when he’d only ever had four. 

Soobin touched him and he felt it. He felt it, he  _ feels _ , feels on his skin,  _ in _ his skin, nerve endings, baby hairs. Somehow a woozy, heady rush, somehow connected deep into his gut. 

No one knows why. It’s made him mad since childhood, asking _ but why? But why? _ about endless basic questions and getting no answers. No one knows why we exist. No one knows why we don’t feel until someday, someone, we do. Sure, soulmates they say, but they don’t know. They don't really even know what a soulmate is supposed to mean. No one knows anything. 

No one knows why Soobin touched him, and he felt it, and Soobin… Soobin did not. 

_ It’s like that sometimes,  _ he tells himself.  _ Common, even. Happens later. _

He ignores the other stories everyone knows and everyone likes to pretend don’t exist. Sometimes, the other person never feels it. Never. 

It was such a small moment, one of an uncountable number of touches. 

“You’re going the wrong way,” Soobin had laughed. He grabbed him by the hand to redirect him from the alley he’d turned into. 

Simple as that. He looped his arm through Yeonjun’s, cold, nose red, and continued his story about the tv series he started. Yeonjun’s gasp was swallowed up by the cacophony of traffic and voices, shuddering breaths when the January wind traveled over his skin and lit him up in tingles. 

_ Tingles _ . A word he’s heard his whole life and only understood in theory until that moment. 

Every time Soobin’s arm jostled against his, he was overcome in sensation, mouth falling open and Soobin… Soobin just continued on with his story. 

Every touch, he’d turn to Soobin in amazement,  _ can you believe it? Can you believe this is what it is to feel?  _

But Soobin only smiled at him, oblivious. Just a normal day, just a mundane conversation between friends. 

He should’ve told him. He didn’t. 

Guilt rises up sometimes. Soobin’s hand on his elbow, arms wrapping him up in a hug, pinching him from behind at the supermarket, reaching to flick fuzz out of his hair. Thousands of little touches since that day and he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know Yeonjun feels it in every inch of his body. 

_ But is he stupid? How can’t he tell? Surely it’s written all over my face.  _

Not that Soobin would know what it looks like to be touched and to feel it. 

Sometimes he almost says it. Sometimes he almost fakes the first time again, to let Soobin witness it, to know. 

But the truth is, it hurts too much to let the truth be known. Irrational he knows but, he's ashamed. Not good enough. Soobin touched him, and he felt it. And Soobin did not. 

-

It’s been six months. Touch, touch instead of the two decades he's lived of dull pressure and muted texture. He feels the tickle of wet grass beneath his palms. The weird slip of water in the shower instead of just the dull weight of it. Soobin’s hair so soft beneath his fingers, fiddling with it on the bus or waiting in line at the movies. And the sun, somehow he feels the sun on his skin. 

It overwhelms him with wonder, with gratitude. So much Soobin has given him.  _ “You’re going the wrong way,”  _ and a smile, and a hand curled around his. Just like that. Just like that Soobin made the world come alive. 

“He fell asleep on Jelly again,” Soobin whispers, a smile bright in his low voice. 

Almost asleep himself, he leans up from where he was resting against Soobin’s leg and peers over the sofa. 

Illuminated by the blue light of the movie on TV, Taehyun lays on the floor, mouth parted, face squished into their big fluffy cat, Jelly. 

Yeonjun snickers and lays his head back down on Soobin’s thigh. “I wonder how much fur he’s already inhaled this year.” 

Soobin laughs. His hand falls to Yeonjun’s arm and warmth ripples through him like a stone dropped in a lake. 

“Are you watching?” Soobin asks suddenly, voice pouty bordering on accusatory. “You said we could watch my movie if we watched yours last week, you better not-” 

“I’m watching! I’m watching. Look, eyes wide open.” He turns to stare bug-eyed up at Soobin. 

A frown, but he’s satisfied. “Good,” he says, and jams a finger up Yeonjun’s nose, giggling when Yeonjun yelps and headbutts him in the stomach. 

He settles back in and smiles at the TV. Cute that Soobin even cares if he’s watching the movie too or not. 

Fingers comb against his scalp. He’s gotten used to hiding the shivers it sends down his spine. Tingles fall down his shoulders and arms like rain, the slow motion of Soobin’s hands fiddling with his hair both exhilarating and soothing. 

He wonders why Soobin does it. Why he himself did it too, all those years before. For the ten thousandth time, he wonders why people touch when they can’t feel it. No one knows. No one knows anything. 

His eyes fall shut, sleep taking him as he tracks the sparks from Soobin’s fingers. 

-

“What are you doing?” 

Soobin comes up behind him, chin rested on his shoulder, arms around his waist. For the ten thousand and one-th time, he wonders why. 

He remembers what it was like before. Like living life cocooned in a puffy winter coat, the pressure of someone’s hand on your shoulder but not the feeling of it. Hugging Soobin, knowing the shape of him but not the glide of skin or rough stretch of his cotton shirt. The bumps and knobs of a tree branch rising and falling under your palm but no sensation of rough bark, or the silk of green leaves. The pain of a headache but not the sting of banging it on the corner of the cabinet door left open. The shiver of winter but not how it burns in fingertips and toes. 

“I’m trying to get the drawstring of my hoodie back through,” he mutters. “I hate when this happens…” 

“Ooh! Hold on, hold on, I saw a video of how to fix that, I need a straw…” 

Soobin trots off to the kitchen, reappearing with a plastic straw and tape. “It’s supposed to be stapled but I think tape will work. Hold still.” 

He pulls Yeonjun center by the shoulders, giggling when he flips the hood up over his head and it covers half his face. 

“This stupid hoodie with the giant hood?” 

“Shut up, it’s my favorite one.” Yeonjun pokes blindly at him and pops into several bursts of light when Soobin pokes him back. 

It’s a sensation that has become a constant companion. Never less thrilling than the first time, but a warm comfort now, too. 

“No- hold on!” Soobin yanks the drawstring out completely and shushes his protests. “Gotta… put it through the straw and… tape it… that should be good. Then, put the straw back through the hole…” 

It seems like it’s working until Soobin realizes he needs to scrunch up the fabric to get it all the way though.

“Ah-” Yeonjun grumbles when Soobin pulls the hood tighter and tighter around his face, tugging his head to the side as Soobin tries to get the straw to poke out the other end. 

“Ah, you-!” 

“Hold on,” Soobin giggles. “Just gotta… there! See!” 

“I can’t see anything, you-” 

Soobin pushes the hood back off his eyes. “See?” He holds up each end of the drawstring, plastic straw still dangling from one side. 

“Oh nice- ah!” 

The world goes dark again as Soobin yanks the strings tight, laughing as the hood puckers over Yeonjun’s face. 

“You’re a brat,” he mutters, fumbling out in front of him. He finds Soobin’s face and squeezes. 

Soft cheeks. He never knew. Sure, he knew the squish, the stretch, but not this. Soft, so soft. That warmth was something that could be velvet under your fingertips, not just a sensation inside your body. Countless touches in the last six months, but it feels new every time. 

A clipped yelp from Soobin, frozen as Yeonjun squishes and slaps a patter-pat playfully on his cheeks.

The sound of a key in the front door. Yeonjun pulls off the hood and shakes out his hair. “Oh hey, Taehyun.” 

“Er,” Taehyun responds, half-eaten apple clutched tight between his teeth, hands full of grocery bags. 

“Ooh, what’d you get?” Yeonjun takes the bags from his hands and rifles through the contents, mind full of dinner. 

“What’s up with you?” Taehyun laughs, apple finally freed. 

“Hm?” Yeonjun looks up but Taehyun’s looking at Soobin. 

“Nothing,” he replies quickly, kneeling beside Yeonjun and pulling out a bag of carrots and a bottle of sauce. 

Yeonjun and Taehyun keep discussing what to cook, but Soobin has gone silent. 

“Huh? Yeah, that’s good,” he murmurs when Taehyun asks him a second time if he wants cheese in the tteokbokki or not. 

“What’s up with him?” Taehyun asks again when Soobin drifts like a ghost into the bathroom. 

“I dunno.” 

He stares at the bathroom door and wonders. It’s been six months. 

It took six weeks of anticipation at every touch to break him of wondering.  _ Is this the one where Soobin feels it? Is this the one? Will it be today? If I touch him like I mean it? If I touch him and don’t think about it at all? Is this the one? Is this the one? _

It was never the one. Every touch that wasn’t  _ the _ touch stabbed through him. A dozen heartbreaks a day, heartbreaks he had to cover with a smile. He didn’t know that disappointment could hurt like that. He didn’t know that he could be broken. 

Six weeks and he had to put it out of his mind. The sweet buzz of anticipation had rotted into agony, an act of cruelty to himself. 

A breathless wonder, a romantic rush, a deep sense of belonging that everyone on earth hopes they’ll feel. It bloomed like fire and quietly, for his own self preservation, Yeonjun killed it. Held it beneath the water until it suffocated and went limp. 

Nothing had ever hurt like that. The wound is still there, but he’s too afraid to check under the bandage. 

Yeonjun looks away from the bathroom door. “I’ll make some ramen too,” he tells Taehyun. 

-

Yeonjun groans into their tiny apartment and shuts the door behind him. “I hate my job,” he announces to anyone that might be home. 

With a heavy sigh and roll of his sore shoulders, he toes out of his shoes, trudging to the washing machine and tossing in his dirty work shirt. 

“I hate my job,” he says again, to Soobin in particular now that he’s seen him in the bedroom. 

Scrolling through his phone, Soobin has that look, the heavy, pre-nap look. Yeonjun flings himself into bed beside him and groans again. 

“Wake me up in an hour, yeah?” He curls an arm and leg across Soobin and silently revels in his warmth, the fuzzy fleece hoodie he wears to sleep. 

Soobin exhales a held breath beneath him. “Yeah! Yeah, I’ll- okay.” 

There’s an odd edge in his voice. Yeonjun lifts his head to look at him but Soobin gives him a tight smile. It’s a smile he’s seen before, the,  _ why are you looking at me I’m just sitting here _ smile. 

Soobin reaches to set his phone on the nightstand and tugs a blanket over them both. 

When he wakes, it’s dark enough to be well past sunset. He smacks his lips and grimaces, body heavy like sand with too much sleep and not enough water. The thought of getting up is almost as bad as sleeping more. He drifts between sleep and awake for a moment, wondering if his body might choose to just sleep through the night. 

He’s almost asleep again when the sheets rustle beside him. Soobin finally deciding to get up, he figures. 

But then. Fingertips warm down the curve of his cheek, again, and again. Soobin traces his nose, across his eyebrows, the curve of his jaw. Skims the backs of his fingers over his cheek, tucks his hair behind his ear over and over, motion fainter and fainter until he falls asleep with his hand cupped over Yeonjun’s face. 

Yeonjun stares into the darkness and wonders. 

-

“My sister has touch now,” Taehyun says the next day over dinner, Vietnamese takeout shared on the living room floor. 

Soobin snaps up from his plate. “Really? How did it happen?” 

“She hugged her friend from English class to take a selfie. They hardly know each other,” he laughs. “She said they’ve only hung out like, twice before, but suddenly they both just, you know. Feel.” 

Taehyun gestures vaguely like he wouldn’t know how to express it. Yeonjun actually knows what it’s like, but if asked, he couldn’t put it into words either. 

Nodding, Soobin stares down at his food. He opens his mouth to speak but thinks better of it, and nods again. 

“I wonder what it’s like,” Taehyun says softly. A little embarrassed, such an obvious thing to say. Everyone wonders what it’s like, until they know, and can’t put it into words. “She said they spent the last two days together, just touching everything.” He laughs. “She was like, ‘all we’ve said for the last 48 hours is  _ woahhh _ , and  _ oh my god _ .’” 

Yeonjun smiles, a feat as hard as pulling an arrow from his chest. “I’m glad her friend felt it too.” 

He looks up when the comment is met with silence. Taehyun is staring at him with a little frown of thought. Soobin is still staring at his food. 

“Because, you know. That happens sometimes. The other person doesn’t feel it for a while, or, yeah. And, you know. I always thought that would be tough.” 

He wants to throw up. The effort to say it casually, hypothetically. The ache rotting in his chest, the arrow wound that never seems to heal over. To say it right there next to Soobin, Soobin who touched him six months ago and did not feel it. 

Taehyun nods like he hadn’t considered that. “Hope that doesn’t happen to me.” Such fear in his voice. Pity, for such unlucky people. Sure it’ll never be him. 

Humiliating. Small. Yeonjun feels so small. Abandoned, somehow. Abandoned like that afternoon his mom forgot to pick him up after school in first grade. Not her fault, just human. He knew how bad she’d feel when she showed up, how she’d pity him for sitting there on the school steps as everyone left one by one. He hated it then, insisted he wasn’t upset. Insisted until he felt bigger, too big to be pitied. Too big to be someone who cried alone on the school steps. 

He hates it now, too. Forcing a smile, he leans over to take some of Taehyun’s noodles. “I’m sure it won’t.” 

-

It smells like June. Yeonjun rests his head on the windowsill and sighs. The clean, musty smell of a rainstorm on hot asphalt, the sweet scent of star jasmine climbing up the side of their apartment building. A humid breeze blankets his skin and he hums, ever in amazement that the air itself can touch. 

Movement below catches his eye. He peers down into the little side alley, narrow, lined haphazard with neighbor’s potted plants and leaning bicycles. 

It’s Soobin. He smiles and doesn’t know why. There’s a thrill like he’s spying, though it’s just Soobin standing outside of the building they both live in. 

The smile fades into a frown of curiosity. It’s Soobin, standing outside of the building they both live in. In a rainstorm. He’s just standing there. After a moment, he raises his palms and stares at the raindrops collecting on his skin. He raises his face to the sky, lips parted. Crying, or is it just the rain?

Yeonjun can’t look away. He remembers, six months before, a near mirror image of this moment. First snow of the winter. Bitterly cold at 2 a.m., but he stood in the middle of the park across the street, hands outstretched, and felt every single clump of snowflakes sting and melt on his palms, and cheeks, and scalp eventually, when it began to collect in his hair and roll in warm rivulets. 

He must’ve stood out there for two hours, _feeling_. Face raised to the sky in an ecstasy that edged close to heartbreak. Crying, or was it just the snow? 

His feet carry him downstairs before he quite realizes he's moved. Rain sizzles and blurs the air white. He closes the back door of their apartment building gently behind him, and for a moment, he hesitates. Raindrops drum on the metal awning above him, a rhythmic plunk where it falls from a crack in the gutter. Soobin is completely soaked now, light grey t-shirt painted dark over the curves of his shoulder blades. 

His hands drop, head bowing to the street with a shivery sigh. Rain drips from his nose, his dark hair, his fingertips. 

Yeonjun wills himself to go to him, but for a moment, he can’t move. Afraid. What if this isn’t what he thinks it is? What if this isn’t what he thinks it is, and then Soobin feels sorry for him. And then a fragile distance will build between them, replacing the easy closeness he cherishes so much. The thought lurches sickly in his stomach. 

He schools his face into something lighter, prepared to joke about it.  _ What the hell are you doing out here?  _ he rehearses. Readies himself for the hurt when Soobin has a reason that isn’t what he’s only barely brave enough to hope for. 

The first warm drops of rain that hit his body as he steps forward make him shiver deep into his knees. He’s getting soaked quickly, water tickling as it pools and rolls down his arms. 

Smile readied, he reaches out and grabs Soobin behind his elbow. “What are you-” 

The words die on his lips. A sound like a whimper at the touch. A flush of goosebumps up Soobin’s arm. 

There’s a desperation in Soobin’s eyes that he can’t quite translate or look away from. The rain drums around them in a cocoon of white noise, smacks and plunks here and there in a lazy rhythm. 

He steps into Soobin slowly and takes hold of his other elbow. Eyes searching his, he drags his fingers down Soobin’s rain soaked skin. 

A thrill no less than the first time he touched Soobin and felt it, but now, the bliss is mirrored in Soobin’s face. 

Slow as a dream, Yeonjun reaches up and cups Soobin’s cheeks in his hands. Another sigh that ends in a whimper. Soobin’s eyes flutter shut and he leans into Yeonjun’s hands. 

“Do you feel it?” 

The words won’t come out above a low murmur, and for a second that feels so long, fear grabs a hold of him.  _ What if I’m wrong? _ Or worse,  _ what if it wasn’t me that made him feel? Can that happen? _

But then, Soobin reaches out, hands landing on the yellow cotton clinging like paper mache over Yeonjun’s shoulders. Slow, reverent, he glides lower, skimming over raindrops and old scars, pausing to press into the warmth he finds in the back of Yeonjun’s wrists. He traces over the delicate bones in Yeonjun’s hands, circles his knuckles before wrapping his hands over his and pressing them into his cheeks. 

Rain drips from Soobin’s hair over their intertwined fingers. He turns into one of Yeonjun’s hands and sighs, nuzzling into his palm, dragging his lips over his skin to see what that feels like too. 

As if returning from somewhere far, far away, Soobin’s eyes open slow and heavy before coming into focus. He watches him for a moment, mouth pursed like he can’t decide which question to choose. 

“How long have you felt it?” 

For a second, he considers lying. Yeonjun bites his lips together, brows peaked in a plea of apology. “Six months.” 

Surprise and hurt flash over Soobin’s face. And then, pity. 

For a moment, he hates it, that familiar shame boiling up to the surface. Pity is what he didn’t want. Pity implies pathetic. 

But then Soobin’s chin wavers. “Six months,” escapes on a broken sigh. Like it hurts him just as much. Like he can feel what it was like to carry this alone. 

Sorrow in his eyes. He caresses the side of Yeonjun’s jaw, he cups the back of his head, fingers weaving through his wet hair. Warm and solid, he curls around Yeonjun in a hug, tighter, tighter, cheek smushed against his ear. 

“Six months,” he repeats after a while, voice at that particular pitch when he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s crying. “I’m so sorry.” 

It breaks over him like a waterfall, wrenching something deep and rotting from his chest. His face screws up in a sob he refuses to let out. He holds Soobin tighter. “Not like you could help it.” 

“But still. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry…” 

“It’s okay,” Yeonjun laughs, a sound choked up with tears. “I was gonna tell you but I… when it happened I was just so shocked and you- you weren’t. So I just...didn’t. And then, for a while it was fun, you know? Like I had this fucking amazing secret that you’d suddenly know too at any minute. But then, you didn’t. And then you didn’t for longer, and longer, and then I just… couldn’t.” 

Soobin nods against him, hand sliding from his hair to cup his cheek, nuzzling deeper into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.” 

Finally he leans back up, holding Yeonjun’s face in both big hands now. “I only spent a week and half feeling this and knowing- thought I knew- that you didn’t, and I already-”

His face screws up into a look of pain and sympathy that makes Yeonjun crumble. Pain for him. An admission that he would’ve felt the same way. That he would’ve ended up broken too. “Six months,” he whispers, thumbing tears from the corners of Yeonjun’s eyes. “Yeonjun…” 

His name in a sigh, gentle, bracing. As if speaking it meant Soobin sees him, knows him. As if Soobin knowing him could keep him safe. Maybe it could.

He tries to steady his breath and pull his face into a smile. “Isn’t it amazing, though?” 

A beat to leave behind sorrow and process Yeonjun’s question. Big, bright, a smile pushes Soobin’s eyes into little crescent moons and he nods. “So amazing! I can’t even- it’s like-” 

He searches Yeonjun’s face for the words to describe how it feels to feel. “It’s amazing. The rain,  _ water _ , it feels so…” he shrugs in wonderment. “And Jelly’s fur! And the sun! Heat, heat is like, an outside feeling too?” 

“Yes! Isn’t that so weird?” Yeonjun giggles. 

“And you,” Soobin continues, thumbing at his cheeks again. “You’re so…” His eyes dance over every bit that he’s touching, the barest traces across Yeonjun’s nose and temples, combing through his dripping hair, squeezing softly at his cheeks, dragging at his bottom lip. 

“You’re so… I thought soft meant like… it bends, or… or no bumps. Like, not a lego.” 

Yeonjun snorts and glances away, shy. “Not a lego…” he mumbles through a laugh. 

“I didn’t know it- you’re so- I didn’t know soft means this.” His hand glides down the curve of Yeonjun’s neck, pressing in just a little, just enough to feel the give of his muscle and skin. 

Flustered and pleased, he can’t look at Soobin for a minute. Tingles. Tingles simmer everywhere Soobin touches him. 

An old lady shuffles past them, lavender umbrella in hand, shooting disapproval up at the both of them held close and soaked to the bone. 

“We should go inside,” Yeonjun laughs, stepping back, darting up to meet Soobin’s gaze. 

“Can I kiss you?” Soobin replies. 

Yeonjun can feel the words on his skin, blooming chest to toes like a wildfire. 

“You want to kiss me?” He can hardly get the words out, shy and grinning. After all, it’s not a given. Soulmates, or whatever this is, can remain platonic. It’s common, even. He thinks of his mother, who hasn't seen her soulmate in at least five years. 

When he looks up, some of the dreaminess is smacked out of Soobin’s face, surprised that the words had come out of himself. The last ten minutes had felt inevitable, this however… this is not. This is more honest, in a way. 

Soobin looks both relieved and more nervous when Yeonjun steps closer again. “Not- not because of this. Because, because I want to.” 

“You want to kiss me because you want to kiss me?” 

Soobin pinches his stomach for teasing but nods. “Yeah. I mean... for a long time. But you don’t have to! Don’t feel like you have to just because of this, because we- we’re… you know. Stop laughing,” he whines. 

“Just come here,” Yeonjun mutters, eyes smiling blissfully shut as he tugs Soobin closer.

Six months of relearning the world through touch, but nothing could’ve prepared him for this. The gentle press of Soobin’s mouth against his, the shiver of breath traveling across his skin, the slip of rain between their lips. 

Soft. Warm. The words expand again into new definitions. 

They kiss until the rain slows to a sporadic pattern, drops landing here and there as the sun attempts to break through the clouds. Soobin takes his face in his hands and kisses one cheek and then the other, presses his lips to his forehead and just stays there a moment, bathing in the sensation. 

He sighs and pulls back to look at Yeonjun again. “What the hell was I doing for six months,” he says woefully, lips in a pout. 

“I don’t know,” Yeonjun whines back and smacks him in the butt. 

Soobin smiles and squishes his face and it’s the weirdest thing; Yeonjun can see it. The fondness, the affection. It’s been there the whole time, he’s just been… calling it something else. Feeling it, but numbed, muted through layers of doubt and uncertainty. But now, it’s alive on every inch of his skin. It’s defined. It’s shared. 

“Wanna go touch some stuff?” 

Yeonjun giggles and turns to kiss the inside of Soobin’s wrist. He nods, blinking slow against the brightness now that the clouds have broken. “Yeah. Let’s go to the park and feel the sun.” 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! I'm working on other yeonbin fics too so feel free to subscribe!
> 
> I'm [themarmalade](https://twitter.com/themarmalade)  
> on twitter too :)


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